Call it coincidence, call it a curse, but the Mariners have an unfortunate habit of blowing things on big weekend, most famously on what’s nicknamed around here “The Deadgar Weekend” (credit John Trupin) of 2017, when the Mariners went into a near-sellout weekend celebrating franchise legend Edgar Martinez, just a half-game out of the Wild Card race in playoff position, and came out of it with a sickening sweep, suffering the worst percentage swing in their playoff fortunes of the season. It’s a scar that sticks with you as a Mariners fan.
Tonight, the Mariners had an opportunity to overturn their fortunes on Ichiro Weekend, in front of a crowd of 39,780, but in order to do so, they’d have to get past Drew Rasmussen, a pitcher who has never lost a decision against the Seattle Mariners. Spoiler alert: Rasmussen once again did not lose this decision against the Mariners, but the Mariners ultimately won the game thanks to some late heroics by the greatest Mariner currently on the roster, one Caleb John Raleigh. The 2017 Mariners had Nelson Cruz with his 4.2 WAR trying to drag the Mariners into the promised land of the playoffs. The 2025 Mariners have Cal Raleigh, who has already, in the early days of August, accrued 5.2 WAR—one full win better, and another after tonight.
From the outset, though, it looked like this might be another flop under the bright lights. This game got off to a weird, annoying start. Brandon Lowe was battling Luis Castillo for nine pitches before apparently flying out on a changeup to right field which Dominic Canzone made a leaping grab on; the ball squirted out of his glove and then Canzone juggled and caught it. But after the out had been called and Lowe was already standing back in the dugout, Rays manager Kevin Cash came out and argued that it should be a foul ball. The out was overturned, and on the very next pitch, Lowe homered on a 93 mph fastball on the top rail. You don’t have to tick off Apollo to see that one coming.
Things continued to be annoying. Randy Arozarena led off the game for the Mariners with a single, but Cal Raleigh went after the first pitch in his at-bat, popping it up. Since Randy was already in at second base, he had no chance to get back and it turned into a double play. Giving away outs against a starter who has dominated the Mariners like Rasmussen has is an ill-advised strategy to say the least, and despite Arozarena and Donovan Solano (!) seeing him well—they each had two hits—that was the only damage off the ruthlessly efficient Rasmussen. Whatever spell the Puyallup-born Rasmussen is able to weave over his hometown baseball club, it continued apace tonight.
It was much more of a struggle for Mariners starter Luis Castillo over those first few innings. Castillo had an issue his last time out putting hitters away, and that was the case again early today. Castillo got into lengthy battles with hitters; his pitch count was already 49 after just three innings. The major culprit there was foul balls—almost 40% of his pitches through three. At this point, we were brainstorming ideas for rebranding Ichiro Weekend in the game thread. A few favorites: Ichi-no, Ichi-ruh-roh, Ichi-zero, Nietzsche-ro, Ickyro. We’ve all seen this show before.
But the Mariners, and importantly Luis Castillo, hung in there. Canzone’s early outfield mistake was offset by some fine defensive plays by Cole Young, who yet again had a quietly good game. Young doesn’t have the strongest arm, but he makes up for it with accurate and on-time throws, solid fundamentals, and good range that helps him get to balls hit deep to either side of him. He’s already up to three defensive runs saved, and that’s considering a few uncharacteristic nervous-jitters mistakes he made in the early days of his big-league career.
But the biggest adjustment was made by Castillo, who rebounded after those lengthy first few innings. He gave up one more run, a solo shot to slugger Junior Caminero after he couldn’t get Caminero to chase a couple of sliders and fell behind 3-0 before making a mistake with a fastball up and in that Caminero was able to yank just fair over the left-field fence. But those two solo shots are the only damage Castillo gave up over seven innings, saving the bullpen after a lengthy extra-innings affair yesterday. He ended one shy of 100 pitches, meaning he needed just 50 pitches to get through innings four through seven.
“Between innings I realized my pitch count was going up through just a few innings,” said Castillo postgame through translator Freddy Llanos. “So I made that mentality switch of trying to be more effective, more fast-paced, not giving the batters as much time to think out there. So that was the adjustment I made, to be attacking more and still locating my pitches well.”
A moment here of appreciation for Carlos Vargas, who worked a clean-n-crisp 1-2-3 eighth inning, and Matt Brash, who closed out what would be an eventual win for the Mariners by striking out the side. Read to the end of the recap first, and then come back and make sure to watch this video of Brash, who deserves his flowers tonight. But we have a different road to go down first.
Finally, the Mariners were able to get back in the game after Rasmussen was out. The Rays made the curious decision to pick up Griffin Jax at the trade deadline—paying a premium to do so—when Jax made it clear he wanted out of Minnesota. He might not have considered that the schedule would soon after bring him to play Seattle, a team he’s surrendered six dingers to—although none since 2023. Until tonight.
It’s been no secret that Cal Raleigh has struggled since the All-Star Break, leading Baseball’s Worst and Crustiest Old Writers to gleefully resurrect the myth of the Home Run Derby curse. It’s been frustrating for Cal, too, whose normally jovial, even-keeled demeanor has taken a hit as he’s become more deeply mired in his struggles. To be fair, there are times during this rough stretch where Cal has looked out of sorts, chasing after changeups in the dirt or swinging helplessly after sliders, but there have also been times where a ball has gone home run distance but just squeaked foul; the anti-Caminero. His bad processes have yielded predictably bad results, but his good processes have yielded bad results, as well, which is frustrating for any player.
“I’ve been hitting some balls hard, just missing some and popping them up,” he acknowledged postgame.
Tonight, however, Cal’s good process aligned with good results. J.P. Crawford—whose seat on the Struggle Bus is still warm—got things started with a one-out single against Jax in the eighth, stinging a line drive at 106 mph. Cole Young then came up with his signature late-in-the-game scorched line-drive single, taking advantage of a fastball Jax left on the plate. At this point, the almost 40,000 fans in T-Mobile Park were whipped into a lather. They chanted RAN-DY thunderously, before Arozarena eventually popped out on the seventh pitch of his at-bat, just getting under a sweeper that wound up in the juicy part of the plate. Up came Cal. The 40,000 fans did not let him forget who he is, struggle or no, as chants of “MVP” rang through the building.
Cal took the first pitch, a sweeper off the plate. Good process. He spat on the second pitch, a changeup too low to tempt a swing. Better process. In a 2-0 count, Jax tried the changeup again, trying to land it close enough to the zone to tempt a swing. It did, but not in the way he might have hoped.
He might not be the league MVP. He is definitely the MVP of the 2025 Seattle Mariners. Like the great Ichiro before him, night after night, Cal Raleigh is the best player on the field for this team. He would never say it; postgame he talked about how the strength of this deep lineup is it takes the pressure off individual players. “They’re not trying to be the hero every single night, or feeling like the weight’s on their shoulders. We have guys who have been there, done that, guys who drive in runs and steal bags. And it’s contagious…It seems like it’s a different guy every night.”
But tonight, Cal was the guy.
As he’s been so many times before.